Wild West.'
Natalie flashed on Rodrigo Vargas's hideous visage as he lifted his bloodied face up from the mud to attack her. Involuntarily, she shuddered.
'I…I have another reason for seeking out this village,' she said after a time. 'A relative of my family, a woman named Dora Cabral, originally from Rio, wrote my mother that she was working out here as a nurse. Is that possible?'
'Quite possible, yes,' Father Francisco replied. 'We have a hospital nearby, and that hospital employs nurses brought in from Rio, but although I know some of them, I know no person named Dora Cabral. I will ask around the village, though.'
'I have already asked a few people, but no luck. It's hard to believe you have a hospital out here.'
'Quite a modern hospital, in fact. They perform highly specialized forms of surgery, although I have never been privileged to know precisely what.'
'Fascinating. So your parishioners go there for care?'
'Not for surgery. Operations are only performed by the nurses and doctors who are flown in or sometimes driven in from Rio, and then only on their patients. If one of our residents needs hospitalization, there is an ambulance we are allowed to use.'
'Who runs this hospital?'
'The same people who run Dom Angelo.'
'The Military Police?'
'Essentially. When they need help, they bring villagers down as cooks or for housekeeping or sometimes even to assist in the operating room. Once every week or two, a clinic is opened at the hospital so that a nurse or doctor can minister to the people from the villages.'
'That's very good of them.'
'It is all about control. The care the villagers get they would not be able to get anywhere else. Their gratitude may cause them to think twice should they consider trying to keep a stone for themselves. Not doing so is generally a wise choice. The police have a network of spies and informants, and mete out justice with a very quick and heavy hand. If you have spoken to any of the townspeople, there is a chance the policeman currently residing at the hospital already knows you are here.'
'Well, if so, they will soon know that I am only passing through.'
Father Francisco tapped a half-smoked cigarette from a crumpled pack and lit it, inhaling gratefully.
'I have decided that I have enough vices I am doing penance for,' he said. 'The right to enjoy these, I retain.'
'It is your right.'
The priest hoisted Natalie's backpack on his shoulder.
'Come, I will show you a flat, protected plot overlooking the village where you can pitch your tent.'
'That's very kind of you, Father. I wonder if there is any way I could visit the hospital. I fell down an embankment not long ago and injured my hip.'
'I can clean and bandage your scrapes and cuts, and tomorrow I can inquire about the status of affairs at the hospital, but I can make no guarantee of treatment.'
'That would be very kind of you. Tell me, where is this hospital?'
'A kilometer to the south. No more. I am sure if there is no special surgery scheduled, Dr. Santoro would be happy to care for you.'
Natalie felt her blood freeze.
'Who did you say?' she asked, trying desperately to maintain a facade of nonchalance.
'Dr. Santoro,' Father Francisco said. 'Dr. Xavier Santoro.'
CHAPTER 29
Then you will soon observe whether a man is just and gentle, or rude and unsociable; these are the signs which distinguish even in youth the philosophical nature from the unphilosophical.
With the steepness of the hills and the height of the trees, night settled in quite quickly. The small plot of grass to which Father Francisco had led Natalie was beyond and above the stream, not that far from the waterfall. She politely declined his offer to help her set up her tent for fear that he would wonder why it was absolutely unused. Tomorrow, if she continued to be comfortable with him, she would share the real story behind her journey to Dom Angelo.
Meanwhile, she pumped the priest as hard as she could for information regarding Dr. Xavier Santoro. What she learned was little. Francisco suspected that, like so many in this part of the forest, Santoro had a past he would just as soon forget. Eight years ago, when Francisco took up residence in Dom Angelo, the hospital and airstrip were already there, as was Santoro.
'A kind man,' he said, 'who genuinely seems to care for the forest people.'
If that's so, Natalie wanted to scream, how did he end up operating on my lung?
In the gathering gloom, pitching the high-tech tent was a chore that would have been comical had the situation not been so intense. Finally, bathed in perspiration and swathed in insect repellent, but victorious, she sat outside her new home, reflecting on her surprising lack of emotion at having so violently killed a man just a few hours ago. According to Francisco, the group of policemen controlling the mine and the medical center numbered four, with at least one always present at the hospital. It was they who maintained the church and meagerly subsidized him, as much, he suspected, for his skill as a lapidary as his ability to preach and minister.
Tomorrow, Natalie decided, she would probably share with him the news that the number of Military Police managers had been reduced by twenty-five percent. For the moment, though, all she wanted to do was sit still and wonder how she could have found her way from an alley in a favela just outside of Rio to a hospital in the middle of nowhere.
The vantage point from her campsite included a disarming view of the waterfall and pool, and of the town below, but of something else as well. To the south, in a valley visible over the tops of trees, the priest had pointed to a faint cluster of lights.
The hospital.
'That is where tomorrow we shall try and get medical help for your hip,' Francisco had said. 'I think you will find that Dr. Santoro has the answer to your problem.'
Let us hope so, Natalie thought savagely.
It was nearly eleven before the nip of cachaca, sugarcane liquor, kicked in and Natalie retreated to the womblike interior of her tent. She slipped Vargas's gun inside her thin sleeping sack, and allowed herself to drift off, fully expecting the proximity to Dr. Xavier Santoro to trigger yet another flashback. What she heard instead, after just a few minutes, was a soft scuffling from somewhere just outside the tent. Natalie silently slid the gun out, held her breath, and listened.
Nothing.
Astonished at how calm she was feeling, she aimed the barrel at the spot where she placed the sound.
'I hear you and I have a gun,' she said in Portuguese. 'Go away before I shoot.'
'You do not need to do that,' a man's harsh whisper responded. 'If I wanted you dead, you would already be dead. It is what I do.'
'Who are you and what do you want?'
'My name is Luis Fernandes. Dora Cabral is my sister.'
With Vargas's gun still at the ready, and a high-intensity flashlight in her other hand, Natalie turned and crawled headfirst from the tent. Luis Fernandes was seated cross-legged, holding his hands palms up to show he was unarmed. He was slightly built, with an Indian's features, but definitely taller — much taller — than those men
